Out of the Gobi

by Weijian Shan

  My new Taiwanese friends assumed that since I was fresh off the boat from China, I couldn’t speak English, and they offered to help me translate. At the bookstore, I asked the shop assistant some questions about the things I wanted to pick up. One of the Taiwanese women, Xu Wen, who spoke English more fluently than others in the group, exclaimed: “Wowsai! Your English is so good.” For some reason, still unbeknownst to me, Americans used the expression “Wow,” but my Taiwanese friends all said “Wowsai.” I had no idea where that expression came from. I took delight in surprising them, as they must have thought a country bumpkin like me had to learn English from scratch. They had no idea that I had almost become a one-eyed UN interpreter.

  I got along handsomely with the Taiwanese students; we spoke the same Chinese language. I was also amused by their curiosity and ignorance about the mainland. They were interested in whatever I said. Clearly, they did not expect me to know much about world affairs and history, especially modern Chinese history. But when comparing notes, I found they themselves knew little. After having spent some time with me, one of them, Wu Shoumin, asked me with a concerned look on his face, “Are there many young people like you on the mainland?” I knew he was worried about the potential conflict between Taiwan and the mainland, as they were theoretically still at war with each other.

  “Yes,” I replied, “I am one of the dumber ones. The brighter ones were sent to better schools.”

  Andy invited me, as well as a couple of the other BIFT faculty who were studying in the Bay Area, to his house for Labor Day. He stopped by USF in his Buick to pick me up. With him was Guo Yujin, the wife of the BIFT vice president, who had traveled with us. Andy took us to his home where he and his wife, Eve, entertained us. It was a tidy house with a backyard pool near the top of one of the Bay Area’s many hills. It was probably not large or even remarkable by California standards, but it looked so to me. Everything was modern. I was amazed at the many time-saving appliances: a toaster, a vacuum cleaner, a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, and of course a color television. I wondered how many decades it would take China to attain this living standard. But what impressed me most were the animals around their property. There were deer, wild rabbits, squirrels, and many kinds of birds, moving around seemingly oblivious to us. I love animals, and I found their movements and activities engaging. I was glad that Americans did not want to capture and eat them; in China, I was sure, they would all become food.

  After the Labor Day weekend, the campus filled with students. Now two weeks into the fall semester, I needed to get on with it. I had come to the United States with the objective of obtaining a formal academic degree, since I was one of the “worker-peasant-soldier students” who were not considered to have received a formal education. Now that I was apparently studying law, I visited USF’s School of Law to find out what I needed to do to get my degree.

  There I met with the associate dean, April Cassou, a lively, bespectacled woman with brown hair. In addition to being the associate dean, she also taught a course in legal research and writing, which she encouraged me to take, as these were required skills for being a lawyer. I asked her how I would go about obtaining a degree. My question surprised her, as her answer surprised me. She didn’t expect me to say that I was planning to get a degree, she said. Then she gently told me that getting a degree was simply not possible.

  First, as with most law schools in the United States, a juris doctor (JD) at USF would take three years; my program would allow me to stay for only one year. Second, as a visiting scholar, I could audit or sit in on any classes on campus; but to formally receive academic credits I would need to be enrolled in a degree program, which required payment of tuition and fees.

  Tuition? What was that? I had never heard of that term or the concept. In China, you might not get a chance to go to college. But once you were in, everything was paid for and education was free. The idea that I could be denied a formal education for lack of money was shocking to me. Of course, I didn’t have any money other than my monthly stipend from the Asia Foundation, which was barely enough to pay my living expenses. For the first time in my life, I realized that money mattered. I was quite distressed by this discovery. Getting my degree was the whole point of coming to the United States with the Asia Foundation.

  Later in the week, I met with another law professor, Jack Garvey, who told me the same thing. He was offering a course on legal contracts and was happy for me to take his class, but he didn’t think I could get a degree either. He suggested, however, that I go across the street to speak with the business school. They had a two-year program, which conferred the degree of master’s of business administration. That would do, I thought. If it took most people two years to get an MBA, I might be able to do it in one by doubling my efforts. Professor Garvey was doubtful, but he agreed to connect me with a professor at the business school who might be able to help.

  Professor Garvey introduced me to Professor Bill Murray, who was a solidly built man about my height, with a beard and twinkling eyes. He smoked a pipe, but more often than not just held the unlit pipe in his mouth or in his hand. He listened as I explained my case, and then said he would be happy to help. We would put together a program, he told me, and then we would go talk with the dean about it. He also invited me to sit in on his class that evening. My hopes were up again.

  Professor Murray taught a class in managerial finance. He spoke without notes. He did not refer to the textbook even once during his lecture, though he frequently cited statistics to illustrate the point he was making. He peppered his lecture with humor. This was the first business class I had ever taken in my life. But to my surprise, I understood most of what he said, and I quite enjoyed it. For me, finance was easier to understand than the lectures at law school, at first because the issues in finance did not require much context to appreciate.

  After class, I asked Professor Murray how he could possibly remember all the data points and statistics he had effortlessly reeled off without consulting notes throughout the lecture. “Oh, I just made them up,” he said, winking. I took an immediate liking to him.

  Professor Murray, together with Mrs. Cassou and Professor Garvey, put together a tailor-made program for me that included courses at both the law school and the business school. My program was unique, since law classes were not a requirement at the business school. I wanted to do both, as I had an interest in both subjects. Also, studying law fit the program the Asia Foundation had in mind for me. Academically, if I took and passed all these courses, I would qualify for an MBA degree. I feel certain my professors went out of their way to help me because I was the school’s first student from China. Professor Murray also gave me a number of textbooks in statistics and other subjects to study on my own, in order to build the requisite basics.

  After the program design was complete, Professor Murray took me to see Dr. Bernie Martin, the dean of the business school. He was very friendly and said he would support the program that had been worked out for me.

  Feeling quite encouraged, I visited Andy at the Asia Foundation, to tell him my plan. He admitted he was a little surprised that barely a week after landing in America, I had made so much progress toward setting up a degree program for myself. Nonetheless, he said that if USF would waive tuition and fees for me, the Asia Foundation would have no problem with what I chose to do.

  But tuition was the issue. There was no money. Professors Cassou, Murray, Garvey, and the dean’s office had all tried to find a source of funds to help cover my tuition, to no avail. At that time, I didn’t appreciate how unlikely the school would be to waive my tuition, or, because I was an unknown quantity, how unlikely any other party would be to step up to help me financially. I had not demonstrated any qualifications or the ability to complete a degree program. I had not gone through the normal application process that other students had, and even though I was nominally a visiting scholar, I came from a background vastly different from the other USF students. There was really no way for t
hem to tell if I would be able to successfully complete the requirements of a degree program, so why should anyone risk wasting their money on me?

  Having exhausted all the possibilities of finding a way to cover the tuition for a degree program, I decided that I would take all the courses and sit for all the exams anyway, so that at least at the end of the program I could tell myself that I had learned as much as other MBA students. I thought ultimately the knowledge would count regardless of whether I received a degree. After all, it was just a piece of paper.

  My first few weeks of classes were difficult to say the least. I could understand almost all the words spoken by the professors, but for some classes, especially at law school, I had no context for what they meant. It was not the language, but the concepts that were unfamiliar. It was difficult for me to participate in class discussions, which were common in US colleges. In China, teachers would teach and students would listen and take notes. Students almost never asked questions, and teachers did not call upon them. But here in the United States, “participation” could count for 20 percent or more of your grade. I had no idea how to participate, and I was also fearful I would ask a stupid question or say something wrong that would insult others accidentally.

  The hardest class for me was marketing, because most of the analyses were qualitative, as opposed to quantitative. It was also the subject where my completely different background as a product of China proved to be the greatest handicap. One time, a professor caught me off guard in class by asking me why McDonald’s was so popular. At that time, I didn’t yet know McDonald’s was a restaurant chain, so I guessed: “Maybe he is very handsome?” The entire class burst out in laughter, and I sank into my chair.

  While marketing was somewhat puzzling, law school was even tougher for me. For Professor Garvey’s class on contracts, the reading material was a thick book, more than a thousand pages long, titled Contracts, Cases and Comment. I was surprised to find that it was not a textbook, but a collection of legal cases and rulings by judges, and some of them had lived hundreds of years ago in England. At first there seemed not to be a common thread from one case to another. Without any framework of reference for what a contract looked like, I couldn’t figure out the relevance of a particular case, even after reading it carefully. In class, Professor Garvey would start out by asking, “Folks, what are the issues?” when he referred to a case. Initially, I thought to myself, “I read the case and I know how the judge ruled. What does he mean by ‘issues?’ How do you identify issues from reading a story?”

  In the United States, contracts were deeply ingrained in the culture. One had to sign contracts all the time: for a student loan, a credit card, an insurance policy, housing rental, and other matters. By contrast, the culture in China at the time was definitely not contractually based. First. there was almost no commercial activity, and second, the Party settled all disputes.

  It was confusing. Why couldn’t there be a simple textbook to explain what a contract was? Instead, the cases illustrated all the different elements of a contract, like offers, acceptances, considerations, damages, and remedies. It was not until midsemester that I figured out, generally, how a contract works. It is like a puzzle with, say, 20 pieces. Each one means nothing on its own. But once you have put 10 pieces together, the picture emerges. That was how it felt. I suddenly came to the realization that there was a logic connecting all the different elements and concepts. Then I could enjoy reading all the old cases and analyzing how the judges had made their decisions. That still didn’t mean I found it easy, but I was glad I took Professor Garvey’s class.

  A few weeks after classes started, I arranged to move to the dormitory wing on Lone Mountain. I had had enough of my lonely single room by the chapel. Doubles were cheaper, and my stipend wasn’t enough for me to afford the luxury of living alone; besides, I was feeling isolated. I was assigned a room on the fourth floor, Room 406, with an American law student named Charlie.

  Dorm life was fun. Most rooms were shared by two people. Male and female students occupied different floors. There was a common shower room and bathroom on each floor. There were two cafeterias, one on Lone Mountain and a bigger one on the main campus. It was the first time I saw people eating raw, uncooked vegetables, which they called salad. Raw vegetables in China would not have been particularly hygienic. They were also tasteless, but the dressing made them more tolerable. I soon got used to them.

  I loved the meat, however, and I loved that it was so plentiful that you could eat until you were full. It took me a little longer to like cheese. I was first exposed to it when Professor Garvey invited me to his home in Marin County for dinner. Before dinner, Mrs. Garvey brought out plates of hors d’oeuvres, including different types of cheese cut into small pieces. They smelled like spoiled food, somewhat stinky. Knowing it was something completely new to me, she prodded me to give it a try, as Professor Garvey watched, smiling. I tried not to breathe and took a bite. It tasted like rubber. I had no idea why Americans liked this stuff. But after a while, cheese also became one of my favorite foods.

  * * *

  I experienced my first Halloween with Mrs. Cassou and her husband, Phil, at their home in Marin County. I didn’t have any idea what to expect—I’d never heard of this holiday before. Why Americans celebrate ghosts is still beyond me. It was a Friday evening, and I arrived to see their doorstep decorated with pumpkins with faces carved into them and candles inside. Phil Cassou was an executive at IBM and a sports car enthusiast. Over dinner, he talked to me about fixing cars. I noticed that Americans used the word “fix” often. Everything could be fixed: fix a dinner, fix a salad, fix a schedule, fix a car, and so on. I had thought that “to fix” meant to make something stationary, but of course it made no sense to make a dinner or a car stationary. When Americans talked about “fixing,” they meant getting something done.

  Later, Phil took me out for a ride around the neighborhood in his new red Corvette. He also owned a Jaguar with 12 cylinders. I didn’t quite know what 12 cylinders really meant, but I knew it was more powerful than all the horses I had ever ridden combined.

  The guests arrived in strange costumes, dressed as firemen, gypsies, and princesses. A couple living in the neighborhood were friends of the Cassous. The husband, whose name was Bill, worked for the chemical division of Chevron, which made pesticides and herbicides. When I told Bill I used to be a farmer and worked with pesticides, he invited me to visit his company in the future.

  Costumed children came to the door from time to time. They yelled “trick or treat,” and our hosts would give each of them a handful of candy. This, too, was completely new and strange to me.

  The dinner was delicious. Aside from cars, the upcoming presidential election dominated the conversation. I had watched the televised debate between Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter earlier that week, and my impression was that Reagan looked more natural and relaxed. He seemed to enjoy himself, smiling and rebutting his opponent as if he were a teacher reproaching a student: “There you go again,” he would say. President Carter, on the other hand, seemed often to be defensive and somewhat awkward. Someone at the table was dismissive of them both and called them “a pair of losers.”

  For dessert, there was pumpkin pie. Mrs. Cassou asked me if I had ever tasted pumpkins. I had to tell her I used to grow the stuff in the Gobi. In fact, we had to eat it day in and day out, so much so that the sight of pumpkins repulsed me. But I had never thought they could be made into such delicious pies. I could not get enough of the dessert that evening. I found out that US pumpkins were very different from the types I had grown in the Gobi, much more solid and starchy.

  The next week, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States in a landslide. I was impressed with Jimmy Carter’s concession speech. I thought he was very gracious after losing. I gave him much credit for having normalized diplomatic relations with China. Without him, I wouldn’t have been in the United States. Admittedly, another president might have done
it too, but who knew? Politics in China had taught me that leaders could not always be counted upon.

  * * *

  By the middle of my first semester at USF, I had become something of a celebrity on campus. Many people were curious to talk with me because none of them had ever met anyone from Red China. For a while, they took turns to pop in to visit with me, stopping by my dorm room for a chat or joining me at my lunch table in the cafeteria. I felt almost like a panda.

  A couple of weeks after the election, a couple invited me to visit their home in Marin. I had been introduced to them by a woman named Julie, an American who had recently returned from China bearing a letter from a friend of mine. Julie asked if I would be interested in meeting her friends. They were musicians, Julie said, and had never met anyone from China.

  Their living room was filled with musical instruments and equipment. Their names were Pete and Jeannette Sears. Pete told me he was a member of a rock band called Jefferson Starship. Jeannette, I found out later, had written lyrics for some of the group’s best-known songs. I had certainly heard of and read about rock-and-roll music, but I had never actually listened to it. We sat in their cluttered living room, and Pete and Jeannette played me some of their records. I was shocked that music could sound so much like loud noises. After a few songs, they asked me if I liked it. “Not really,” I said politely.

  They must have thought I was an idiot, at least as far as music was concerned, and they would have been right. But they nonetheless gave me copies of three records by their band: Red Octopus, Freedom at Point Zero, and Earth. Pete autographed each of them: “To Shan, best wishes, Pete Sears.”

  Back in the dorm, when Charlie, my roommate, saw those records, his eyes lit up. “Where did you get those?” he asked. I told him that the musicians had just given them to me. He didn’t know what I did to deserve them. Charlie had a record player in our room, and he immediately pulled my new records out of their sleeves one by one and started playing them, very loudly, which attracted other residents to come to listen. One person pulled me aside and whispered to me that these autographed records were very valuable, especially in mint condition, and therefore I shouldn’t let Charlie play them. But it was too late and I didn’t know how to not let him do it.